April 7th: William Wordsworth's birthday

William Wordsworth, the poet, was born on this date in 1770. Here are 10 things you may not know about Wordsworth:

1. As well as his sister, Dorothy, with whom he was famously close, Wordsworth had three brothers: Richard, who became a lawyer; John, who became the master of a ship, but sadly died at sea, and Christopher, who was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.
2. His mother died when he was eight and his father when he was about twelve. The Wordsworth siblings were split up to be raised by various relatives, so William did not see his sister Dorothy for several years.
3. On a visit to France in 1791 he became a supporter of the Republican movement; he also had an affair with a French woman, Annette Vallon, with whom he had a child, Caroline. He claimed he wanted to marry Annette, but left her to return to England, only returning when he had decided to marry his childhood friend, Mary Hutchinson and needed to sort things out with his other family. He did support Caroline financially for the rest of her life.
4. He had five children with Mary: John, Dora, Thomas, Catherine and William. Thomas and Catherine both died of TB in 1812 aged less than 10; Dora died aged 43. William and Mary had bought a field nearby and had been planning to build a house on it, but instead they planted daffodils on it and dedicated it to Dora. Dora's Field is now owned by the National Trust.
5. Wordsworth was a keen walker. As well as hiking around the Lake District, he went on hiking holidays in Wales, France, Switzerland and Germany. While on his walks, he would collect wild flowers to re-plant in his garden.
6. He once wrote a play, called The Borderers. The play was a tragedy in verse and set in the time of Henry III. Thomas Harris, the then manager of Covent Garden Theatre, rejected the play when Wordsworth tried to get it staged. The rejection upset Wordsworth so much that he did not publish the play for another 35 years, after he had re-written it.
7. He also wrote a guide book to the Lake District.
8. Wordsworth was the only Poet Laureate never to write any official poetry. When the previous Laureate, John Southey, died in 1843, the honour was offered to Wordsworth, who refused at first on the grounds that he was too old. The then Prime Minister, Robert Peel, was keen to appoint him though, and promised that "you shall have nothing required of you".
9. Dove cottage was not the only home the Wordsworths had in the Lake District. They also lived at Allan Bank, the Rectory at Grasmere and Rydal Hall.
10. Wordsworth was not, in fact, "wandering lonely as a cloud" when he saw the Daffodils that inspired his famous poem. His sister Dorothy was with him. She wrote about the walk in her diary, and her own description of the daffodils was thought to have inspired her brother's poem.